


the first step towards victory is trust

by SaraJaye



Series: Shadowed Prisms: The Cindered Shadows AUs [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: CSAU2, Claude backstory spoilers, Claude is a shounen hero, Developing Friendships, Doubt, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Learning to trust, Pep talks, Time Skips, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25767670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraJaye/pseuds/SaraJaye
Summary: If all three house leaders communicated and learned to work together, there would be no war and everything would be 100% better. Except they do just that and there's still a war, the professor's missing, nothing is beautiful and everything hurts.
Relationships: Mentioned Dimitri/Dedue
Series: Shadowed Prisms: The Cindered Shadows AUs [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1835785
Kudos: 10
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11





	the first step towards victory is trust

Claude fancied himself a shrewd observer of the world around him, especially any hint at the secrets that lay hidden under layers of censorship and well-meaning deception. Like Edelgard, he fully believed the Church and Lady Rhea could not be trusted; he'd seen for himself that Seteth took great pains to hide anything he didn't approve of. Unlike Edelgard, though, he initially didn't see _everything_ they did as being in bad faith.

Then Teach had sided with Edelgard in the Holy Tomb, even after learning she was the Flame Emperor, and Claude could no longer give Lady Rhea the benefit of the doubt.

The rebellion had started off promisingly enough, with Dimtiri and Edelgard putting aside their anger and forming the Officer's Academy Strike Force. But then their professor went missing and the Empire had declared war on the Kingdom, with the Alliance breaking into fragments depending on who supported which side.

(Claude had always found the name of the Alliance bitterly ironic, considering how much fighting went on between the houses on a _good_ day.)

Counterattacks formed from all three sides against Garreg Mach, hoping to crush the rebellion into dust. The last battle had seen the Empire's forces successful, Garreg Mach now under their control as the house leaders, students, and staff fled to the one place they knew they'd be safe: the Abyss.

As for Lady Rhea? She'd simply disappeared, but Claude knew she and her legions of supporters were planning something. Edelgard was convinced she was planning to find the missing professor, but so far they'd talked her out of looking for Teach herself.

Not that Claude himself didn't fear the worst, Rhea had made her intentions quite clear in the Holy Tomb. _But if she'd found him and taken his heart we'd know about it, she'd be proclaiming up and down Fodlan that Sothis was back,_ he tried to remind himself.

Right now, the four house leaders sat in the old Ashen Wolves classroom, sipping tea. Claude and Yuri were trying to get some strategy planning going, but Edelgard kept worrying about Teach and Dimitri...well, at this point it was enough that he was coming to any meetings at all, even if he barely spoke.

"We need to figure out how we're going to take back the monastery," Yuri said. "It's been almost a year. We're safe down here, but how long before they find us?"

"Shouldn't we be focused on finding the professor?" Edelgard said, staring into her teacup. "I know I'm not the only one who would feel better about this if he was here."

"Listen, I wanna find Teach as much as you, but wouldn't it be nice if he came back and saw we'd reclaimed our base all on our own?" Claude countered. "I think it would be, so let's focus on that first." Dimitri sighed.

"Does it matter? Even if we get it back, they're still going to come. The Empire, the Kingdom-no, the _Dukedom,_ " he spat. At least this time he didn't glare at Edelgard when he said it. Those two weren't even close to being friends again, but at least he'd stopped blaming everything on her and she'd stopped refusing to explain herself because "he wouldn't understand."

"Of course it matters," Claude said. "I mean, we're covered down here for a while, but the longer we stay the worse shape Garreg Mach will be in when we finally get it back. I can already imagine the greenhouse-"

Dimitri's hand clenched into a fist, and Claude immediately wished he hadn't mentioned the greenhouse.

"Sorry." Dimitri closed his eyes, his other hand going to the chain around his neck and clutching the golden earring dangling from it. Dedue was dead, his life exchanged to save Dimitri when Cornelia publicly announced his supposed murder of his uncle, that he was to be executed within the week. For months, Dimitri refused to leave his room, didn't speak, barely ate.

It didn't take a mind-reader to figure out what was going on between them. And Dimitri already had a huge complex about people giving their lives for him.

"I'm sorry," Claude muttered, because he didn't know what else to say. Edelgard bit her lip, looking guilty and frustrated, and Yuri closed the journal he'd brought along with a defeated sigh.

"Maybe us working together was a mistake," Edelgard said. "Our goals, our beliefs, we're all just too different. We'll never understand each other enough." Dimitri smiled bitterly.

"For once, I completely agree with you. We're nothing without the professor."

" _No!_ We're not giving up, I won't let us give up," he said, surprising himself with the vehemence of his own tone. "Teach helped us form the Officer's Academy Strike Force because he believed in us, he believed we could all work together. And so do I!" Actually, right now he doubted the conviction behind his words, but someone had to believe or all they'd gone through in the last five years would be for nothing.

"You know, Claude's got an point," Yuri said. "About everything. I know things are bad right now, I miss the monastery too, but that's all the more reason not to give up. We _have_ to get it back."

"Can we _do_ it without the professor, though?" Edelgard asked quietly. "You saw how quickly everything fell apart without him here."

"Because _we_ let it," Yuri said. "I saw how well you three could work together in the Abyss, but after that you fell back into your old ways. You went to the professor for everything even though you knew he wanted you to learn to trust each other."

"So we put everything on his shoulders. We expected him to hold our hands and once he let go, we just sort of floundered," Claude said. "When we shouldn't have _needed_ him to hold our hands all that time."

"So what are you saying, it doesn't _matter_ if he never comes back?" Dimitri asked bitterly.

"Of _course_ it matters," Yuri said. "But we're not just his students anymore, you know? We've grown up, and when he comes back he's not going to be our teacher. He'll be our _friend,_ and that's why we need him."

"A friend." Edelgard closed her eyes. "Someone who sees how far you're willing to go for your goals, and still chooses to walk by your side in the end."

"Who sees the darkness in you, and doesn't back away in fear," Dimitri added quietly.

"Who insists on following you into danger," Yuri chimed in. Claude smiled, sensing a bit of the gloom finally beginning to lift.

"And someone who taught me it's okay to trust people and let them in," he said. "He taught us that we can work together no matter how different we are, so let's prove him right. Let's take back Garreg Mach from the Empire, so when Teach comes back he'll see how much we've all grown!"

Edelgard opened her eyes, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"He'd be proud of us, wouldn't he? Just like he was after we stopped Alferic's rampage and got the Chalice back," she murmured. "He wasn't even my professor, not formally, but he still did so much to help me and the Black Eagles."

"If it weren't for him, the Ashen Wolves wouldn't be allowed to join the main classes," Yuri sighed. "It felt nice, being back in the old Blue Lions classroom. Being with a new group of students who don't know what I did to get kicked out and never brought it up."

Dimitri paused in his compulsive stroking of Dedue's earring, looked up, and smiled sadly.

"We were happy to have you with us, Yuri. And if anyone _had_ given you a hard time the professor would've stopped them," he said. "And I would, too."

"See? That alone proves we could've counted on each other all along if we just tried harder," Claude said. Edelgard folded her hands under her chin, nodding a little.

"I've spent years believing my path was mine to walk alone," she said quietly. "I've always known my methods were too extreme, I never expected anyone other than Hubert to stay by my side...when the professor and my classmates chose to, I didn't know what to think."

"It's the same with me," Dimitri said. "I've been letting the voices of the dead guide me, kept my darkest thoughts to myself...even Dedue didn't know until I finally confided in him, after the Holy Tomb incident." He shook his head. "And the one person who kept trying to snap me out of it, I ignored."

"To be fair, Felix is an ass," Yuri said.

"But he has a point," Edelgard countered. "He doesn't need to be such a complete knob about it, of course, but he has a point. Dimitri, you lost so much to the Tragedy of Duscur, but you weren't alone. Did you ever think of confiding in your friends and Lord Rodrigue instead of letting it fester?"

"Like you should have told your classmates," Dimitri said.

"And I should have told my pack what was going on with Alferic and my people," Yuri added. Claude swallowed. All this talk about honesty and trust, and he was the only one still being so vague. _Practice what you preach,_ went the old saying. He took a deep breath and fixed his gaze on the three of them.

"I'm half Almyran," he said. "My real name is Khalid, and my father is the King of Alymra. My mother is Lady Tiana of Riegan, and that's how I'm next in line to lead the Alliance."

He expected shock. Possibly righteous anger that he'd been lying all along. But instead they just had this _what took you so long_ look on their faces.

"So that's what Balthus was getting at back then. He knew all along, didn't he," Yuri said.

"And we always knew you weren't a Fodlan native," Edelgard said. "You didn't do much to hide this fact. We just didn't suspect _how_ much you were hiding."

"Were you going to tell us even if things hadn't gotten this out of hand?" Dimitri asked. Claude nodded.

"Eventually. I wanted to make some serious headway in my goals to bust open Fodlan's Throat and tear down some of the prejudice across the continent first," he said. "You're not the only one who hates how the Church controls everything and encourages such behavior, Edelgard."

"And since-" He paused. "-getting to know other students here, I've come to dislike it as well," Dimitri said. "I acknowledge that I've lived most of my life a privileged Prince who needed a tragedy to make him understand, and even after-"

"Dimitri, no, cut that shit out," Yuri said. "The way you were brought up isn't your fault, and Faerghus isn't _that_ in line with the Church's beliefs. Everyone just _thinks_ you're all repressed and proper and whatnot, just like everyone _thinks_ the Empire eats and breathes Crests and the Alliance-"

"Oh, they're right about the Alliance," Claude cut in. "But we've gotten way off track here. So you guys really don't care that I'm Almyran?"

"Why should we?" Yuri said, and Claude relaxed. His classmates still didn't know, but he felt better about the day he eventually _would_ tell them. He laid his hand in the center of the table, and everyone stacked theirs on top.

"We'll take back Garreg Mach," he said. "We'll beat back the Empire and the Dukedom, and when Teach comes back we'll show him how far we've come."

"In the name of all those we've lost," Edelgard added, glancing at Dimitri. Dimitri stroked Dedue's earring reverently and offered another tiny smile.

"They're with us in spirit. They'd never want us to give up."

They spent the rest of the afternoon working out strategies. It would still be a while before they were all the best of friends, there was still a lot to work through, but as long as they trusted each other things would be just fine.


End file.
